Faith & Education: Media savvy students packing into journalism programs

Enrollment in traditional journalism programs has remained fairly steady for the past decade, but the strongest growth — and now the largest total number of students — is in the category called “other,” which includes online and visual communications programs, for example.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Staff | Articles
Source & Credit: Washington Business Journal
By Tierney Plumb | February 19, 2010

Shortly after graduating from The George Washington University in December with a degree in journalism, Lindsay Corcoran landed a job covering local news in Massachusetts.

But in the days before graduation, she had good reason to worry about her future. Students across the country continue to flock to journalism at a time when jobs in the industry are becoming more scarce as small and big media operations tighten their belts. Corcoran knew many students who had graduated in the spring of 2009 and still did not have a job.

Getting a full-time gig — even if it’s just for $11 an hour for 30 hours a week — was very unexpected, she said. After her initial three-month probationary period, she will get a raise.


Her job at The Daily Shrewsbury online news site for CentralMassNews is far from the traditional newspaper job. She reports and writes all the articles, takes the photographs, writes a news blog, and shoots and uploads all the video.

“I provide all of the coverage for just one town. I am like a one-man show,” she said. “I think the journalism program at GW did help me prepare for a lot of this multifaceted work.”

Mike Shanahan, assistant professor of journalism at GWU’s School of Media and Public Affairs, sums up the reason his former student scored a job so quickly.

“She came in with the skills and an understanding that the news is moving online,” he said.

The media business, like many others, was hit hard by the recession last year. “Paper Cuts,” a blog that tracks layoffs at U.S. newspapers, tallied 14,845 job cuts and buyouts in 2009.

That included about 44 from the Congressional Quarterly-Roll Call merger in September and more than 140 at The Washington Times in December. The previous year was also a bad year. “Paper Cuts” tallied nearly 16,000 layoffs and buyouts in 2008.
Packed classrooms

Despite the negative headlines, there has been a surge in students at Washington-area college journalism programs.

From fall 2006 to fall 2009, the number of journalism and mass communications majors at GWU jumped nearly 60 percent to 187 students. As of Feb. 1, applications at American University’s School of Communication rose more than 8 percent over the same time last year.

Across the U.S., enrollment in undergraduate journalism and mass communication programs was up 0.9 percent in the fall of 2008, compared with a year earlier, according to the most recent annual survey of enrollment by the University of Georgia. In fact, enrollment has been climbing for the past 15 years.

“My introduction to journalism class is packed,” said Steve Klein, who coordinates the journalism concentration and electronic journalism minor in the communication department at George Mason University. His class’s cap has increased from 40 to 50 students, and Klein is currently teaching 47 students, the largest he has taught for that course in seven years at GMU.

The communication department is the third largest of about 12 departments in GMU’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences, with about 1,100 undergraduates in its five areas of concentrations. Some of the classes are overflowing. There are 4,103 students enrolled in the department’s courses.

Klein constantly gets notes from graduates saying the most valuable class they took was online journalism. In his mind, however, the most valuable class is electronic news gathering and editing, where students are taught to shoot, cut and present video. Those skills can bleed outside of journalism into video production and film documentary.

“If I could go back and talk to my freshman self, I would tell me to learn as much about the Web and about video as I possibly could,” Corcoran said. “It took me until almost my senior year to realize that this is where journalism is moving, and I just wish I knew it sooner so I could have taken advantage of more of the opportunities that [GWU’s School of Media and Public Affairs] had to offer.”
Media savvy

Enrollment in traditional journalism programs has remained fairly steady for the past decade, but the strongest growth — and now the largest total number of students — is in the category called “other,” which includes online and visual communications programs, for example.

“I find that [some] students go into something outside the industry where they use the skills, especially the online Web building and blogging and social media skills, and pursue jobs in mainstream or not mainstream journalism,” Klein said.

One of his former students who has cultivated a cross-platform career is Angie Goff, currently an anchor at WUSA-Channel 9 who also has a popular metro blog called “Oh My Goff.”

“My approach to journalism,” Klein said, “is it isn’t just for journalists. In the 21st century, anyone can be a publisher.”

Klein recommends to his best students that they don’t major in communication but instead take electronic journalism as a minor and major in a field that focuses on a different area of knowledge.

Jill Olmsted, journalism division director at AU’s School of Communication, tells prospective students that being savvy across multiple media platforms is a must today.


Read the original article here: Media savvy students packing into journalism programs

-- Inspiration Credit: Shukoor Ahmed, CEO, V-Empower, Inc. (www.v-empower.com), shukoor@v-empower.com, shukoor62@yahoo.com, "Ranked 5th in Local Giving ( Washington DC area) by Washington Business Journal, May 15, 2009”